Making the IUCN Red List in 2008 isn't exactly an honor one wishes to have bestowed upon its species, but nonetheless, the scalloped hammerhead shark has received the distinction, officially classifying it as endangered.

The hammerheads aren't the only sharks to make this year's list; joining them are the short-fin mako shark, the smooth hammerhead and the tiger sharks. Once a species feared far and wide due to a little film you may have heard of called Jaws, sharks are now being hunted for their fins, as shark fin soup is considered a delicacy in China. Dr. Julia Baum of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography researched the decreasing numbers and found that between 1970 and 2005, the scallop hammerhead shark population dropped 98 per cent. The news isn't great for the great white, tiger and smooth hammerhead species either, all of whom has experienced a similar decline. To put this in perspective, the scalloped hammerheads were at one point one of the most abundant shark species on the earth.

“Right now the oceans are being emptied of sharks, and the scale of the problem is global,” Dr Baum told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Boston yesterday. “If we continue in the way we are going, we are looking at a really high risk of extinction for some of these species within the next few decades.”

While I wouldn't recommend Hayden Panettiere go for a swim in the ocean with any of these bad boys, it looks like she may be able to graduate, or at least expand, her whale and dolphin saving crusades to include sharks as well.

» Times Online